GPS Data Will be Considered by the US Supreme Court

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Peter S. Vogel

Today everybody carries GPS devices in their phones (and tablets), but few people consider that our personal privacy may be compromised as a result. In November the US Supreme Court will hear argument (US v. Jones) as to whether the drug suspect’s Constitutional right to privacy was violated since a GPS device was attached to his vehicle without a warrant. As a matter of fact, Roger L. Easton, the principle inventor of GPS technology, has joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation to urge the Supreme Court to require warrants before using GPS tracking systems.

GPS data is retained by phone service providers and may become a larger part of litigation (and eDiscovery) which will allow parties in litigation to track parties’ location at specific times.

Our personal privacy may be a stake if the Supreme Court writes a broad opinion about how much personal privacy we can expect from GPS data since our phones (and tablets) contain GPS devices.

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GPS Tracking Required Warrant

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Peter S. Vogel

A court recently ruled that the use of GPS tracking data in a drug distribution case violated the defendant's constitutional rights and the police needed a warrant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief in support of Antoine Jones that his expectation of privacy was violated by the GPS device placed on his vehicle. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Jones conviction in the case of US v. Maynard. One may wonder if the GPS was tracked from a cell phone if the outcome would have been different. Since our cell phones have GPS data, it is any wonder that police might use the GPS cell data to track us? This court decision apparently protects us, at least for the time being.

Facebook About to Release Geolocation Features

A recent report indicates that Facebook will provide “location-aware data to become a part of existing platform applications,” which will compete with Foursquare and Twitter Places. Facebook already owns Hot Potato which is a check-in service and offered to buy Foursquare for $120 million which was rejected. Clearly Social Media is using geolocation data, and this will definitely grow! How courts rule about the use of GPS and geolocation data in Social Media in the wake of the the Maynard case will be interesting to monitor.

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